PHONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS SKILLS, VERBAL WORKING-MEMORY, AND READING-ABILITY IN 2ND-GRADE CHILDREN

This study tested the hypothesis that phonological analysis skills mak e a unique contribution to reading ability against the hypothesis that one latent phonological factor underlies the associations among phono logical analysis skills, verbal working memory skills, and reading ach ievement. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses examined the uniqu e contributions of phonological analysis and verbal working memory mea sures to the prediction of 3 measures of concurrent reading ability in 68 second-grade children (mean age 7 years 4 months). Phonological an alysis and verbal working memory measures each accounted for unique va riation in each of the 3 reading measures. In addition, phonological a nalysis measures, but not verbal working memory measures, were particu larly strong predictors of pseudoword reading skills. These results su ggest that, although phonological analysis and verbal working memory s kills share a substantial amount of common variance, phonological anal ysis and verbal working memory tasks do tap somewhat different reading -related skills.